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+--- Thread: The Hurt Locker (/thread-92.html)
The Hurt Locker - 17th Knight - 08-20-2009
[review=The Hurt Locker site=http://www.reganburns.com/images/Reviews/hurt%20locker2.jpg cover=http://www.reganburns.com/images/Reviews/hurt%20locker2.jpg]
The Hurt Locker is one of the best war movies ever made. Except that, like Johnny Got His Gun, it isn't as much about the war being fought as it is about the men who are fighting it. It is also the only movie about the Iraq War that isn't anti-soldier, anti-war, anti-government crap.
The Hurt Locker is the story of a unique group of soldiers called EOD's, or Explosive Ordinance Disposal. I actually knew an EOD in the Navy and it is a very interesting job. EOD's work with any type of explosive you can imagine, and in Iraq they primarily deal with IEDs (improved explosive devices).
And so this movie is spent, moment after moment, riding the edge of your seat as these men find themselves up against bomb after bomb after bomb after bomb, the whole while the clock ticking down until they can go home, and yet it seems their team-leader is a war/adrenaline junkie who is just as content to lead them all to death as he is to actually succeed at his job.
The acting is absolutely perfect, with every performance delivered being top-notch. A few big-name actors walk through the screen, but none of them play major roles, which surprised me. The main characters are all relatively unknowns and they perform fabulously. Easily Academy Award worthy performances across the board.
The directing is also superb, keeping you there in the somewhat-controlled chaos of any combat situation, with the added tension of defusing explosives in the middle of this hostile warzone. It's almost exhausting to watch these men literally walk into death, over and over and over and over, and yet afterward it just emphasizes that there are people who live their lives doing this, and you only had to watch it for 2 hours.
There is somewhat a message to the movie, that to some people war can become an addiction. Mostly, however, it's a fascinating character study of these three men, but it is never really thrust into your face. Like any other person you know, over the course of the film, you have to discern who they really are. Only in the last line of the movie do you understand the main character, and it is a very very chilling moment.
Ultimately, I would say that only 3 movies so far this year deserve to be up for best picture awards: UP, Moon, and The Hurt Locker. And if I had to decide, I would give it to The Hurt Locker. It is one of the best war movies ever made, and probably the best movie this year.
[/review]